Laughter is a gift from God. When we refuse to accept it, it makes Him want to take it back. Like the unicorns.

277. Crazy rapture products. (Cue hate mail)

Misc June 5, 2008 • Comments

I have a pretty good idea how my first day in heaven is going to go. Right in the middle of breakdancing with JR Tolkien and Kirk Cameron, a furry mongoose messenger will come up to me and say, “God wants to see you in his office.” I’ll shrug to Kirk and the Tolkster and then ride a unicorn to God’s office. He’ll invite me to sit down in a hammock, there are no chairs in His office, and then He’ll tell me which Stuff Christians Like posts He thought worked well. I think this is one of them, but some people won’t.

You see, I got an email last night from a reader named Kristin F. I get the coolest ideas from readers but this one floored me. When I opened it up and clicked the link they sent, I could barely believe what I was seeing. But it’s the kind of topic that deserves a brief disclaimer.

Please resist the temptation to think I am being profane about the rapture. It’s actually just the opposite. I’m trying to shine a light, admittedly sarcastic, on an example of people profiting from the rapture. People that are selling a really weird product that needs to be properly labeled as “wacky.” It’s not that I won’t mess up on this site. I felt like I was profane a few weeks ago to a minister and ended up editing the post based on some critical but valuable reader feedback.

This post is not about the rapture. I don’t feel qualified to write on that topic.
This post is not about my personal beliefs about the rapture.
This post is about a company that will send emails to your friends and family members after the rapture happens.

Please read that last sentence again, because it’s a little bizarre.

Basically, there is a company online that for $40 a year will send 62 of your friends that aren’t Christians emails six days after the rapture. I honestly don’t know where to start with this one. You probably think I am teasing, but here is a description of the service, straight from the website that sells this idea:

Imagine how taken back they will be by the millions of missing Christians and devastation at the rapture. They will know it was true and that they have blown it. There will be a small window of time where they might be reached for the Kingdom of God. We have made it possible for you to send them a letter of love and a plea to receive Christ one last time. You can also send information based on scripture as to what will happen next. Each fulfilled prophecy will cause your letter and plea to be remembered and a decision to be made. “WHY” is one last chance to bring them to Christ and snatch them from the flames!

When I read that, I was struck with a few questions:

1. Will people be checking their email 6 days after the rapture? Honestly, in every “the world has ended” movie I have ever seen, no one wakes up and finds millions of people gone and says, “man oh man, I better check my gmail and twitter a little.”

2. How can I verify that it worked? I mean, I’m in heaven and can’t exactly go try to get my money back if the whole thing fails. I’m just saying.

3. Remember how hard it was to choose who to invite to your wedding? Imagine picking the 62 people you write these post rapture emails too. And why 62? Why are we screwing guy #63?

4. What if you die before the rapture? Wouldn’t it be weird to get an email from someone that just died talking about the rapture?

5. How much would you pay to read one of those emails people write to be sent after the rapture? I would pay a lot of money. I have to believe that most sound like this:

“You blew it. I told you so Larry. Seriously, all those years we were married and you wanted to play golf instead of church. I’m in heaven Larry and I have all the pet cats I want and a really nice Cadillac. In heaven Larry. Get on board before it’s too late.”

6. Do they have a non Christian on staff that sends all these out after the rapture? My friend Jeremy wonders what that job description looks like. I bet the headline is “Hate God and good with computers?” Oh wait, here is how you say it works:

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period.

7. What if the 3 people mentioned above go on vacation and don’t log in long before the rapture? Are my friends and family members going to get rapture emails randomly?

8. Be honest, did you decide to charge $40 a year for this service because you know we Christians like that number? The whole 40 days in the desert kind of thing? Come on, you can tell me.

Those are the questions I have and I hope that you have others. I’m not going to post the URL because I don’t want to swamp these guys with traffic and don’t want to give them more attention than they deserve. But I couldn’t resist writing about this one and I promise that I will never charge you to read Stuff Christians Like after the rapture.

Update: Fox News posted a story online about this site. It appears that they posted it a few hours after Stuff Christians Like. Did we scoop Fox News? Did they copy us? So many questions.

276. Doing super holy things for God’s sake.

Misc June 5, 2008 • Comments

Every time I see someone on an awards show give God a shout out and a big thank you, I am flooded with odd thoughts.

Is God down with the rap group Wu Tang Clan? Is Method Man one of his favorite artists? Is ODB up in heaven right now throwing dice? What if God doesn’t want anything to do with that fake flattery rappers give him at award shows? What if it makes him cringe and reach for his bag o’ lightning bolts? And more than that, what if I’m paying the same sort of lip service with my own life? Are we Christians putting on ceremony and fluff that God doesn’t really want from us?

This question jumped out at me while reading Zechariah a few days ago. In chapter 7, the people are thinking about fasting for the Lord. You know, doing something pretty nice for God, giving him a shout out and really getting religious. But as they got ready to fast, here is what God says in verse 5:

“When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?”

Big fan of that. Big fan of God basically saying, “Oh boy, here we go with the incense and the fasting. The hand bells were a nice touch. Look, quit kidding yourself, that was all about you.”

That alone is kind of an interesting story. The people saying “we are going to hook you up God with something super spiritual” and God responding, “Nah, I’m good.”

But here is where it gets interesting. Instead of a fast, God suggests a feast. Instead of hunger and penance, God suggests a party. Ridiculous, but here’s what He says in 8:19:

“The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah.”

I am going to resist making a prodigal son reference but there’s something in those two words, “fast” and “feast” that I’ve never noticed before. Although they are polar opposite experiences, there’s only a one letter difference. Without “e” you starve yourself. With “e” you have a party and dance the night away.

The cool thing is that for me, it’s easy to imagine that the “e” stands for “Emmanuel.” (I realize it can also start with i.) That’s a Hebrew word which means “God is with us.” So when Emmanuel is with us, we feast, when he’s not, we fast. When e is present we party, when e is absent we pity.

You might have noticed that before, but I am kind of slow and didn’t. And now that I do, it makes me wonder, is my life lived with an e or without an e?

Am I doing fake holy things for God’s sake?

Am I grasping that I serve a God that suggests a party?

Am I pursuing feast or fast?

Where the ladies at?

Misc June 5, 2008 • Comments

Next week, I will be writing the “lady version” of my metrosexual worship leader post. It might be called, “How hard can you rock the pants suit?” but I’m not certain.

I think you guys and girls have some great ideas. So if you want to add an item to the post, email me at theacuffs@yahoo.com

275. Playing red rover at VBS.

Kids/ vbs June 5, 2008 • Comments

Like any good youth retreat, Vacation Bible School usually has its fair share of accidents and injuries. It’s just kind of what happens when you combine a few dozen children, massive amounts of sugary orange drink and then set them loose on a playground. But for my money, if you really want to go home from VBS with a battle scar, you need to play a game of red rover.

If you’ve never played red rover, please let me enlighten you. In red rover, kids form two lines facing each other. They hold hands and then yell, “red rover, red rover send Matt right over.” Matt then runs as fast as he can into the arms of the other kids. If the force of his body causes two people to release their hands, he wins. If instead he gets clothes lined and falls down, he gets to go to the hospital and have 7 stitches in his head.

It’s so dangerous that it is absurd. Most of my life I spend trying not to get close lined. It’s a painful experience and is actually used pretty effectively in professional wrestling. And yet, it’s a game we used to play on the playground. Which made me think, are there any other awesomely dangerous games we should be playing at VBS?

My new games:

1. Badger in a bag.
Lets hide pieces of caramel in a bag and then put a really angry badger in that same bag. To win, you have to successfully grab a piece of candy from the bag without losing a finger.

2. Corn kernel balloon fight.
Filling balloons with water is for wimps. Let’s get balloons and fill them with kernels of corn. Getting hit by one will certainly leave a bruise, but what a great way to remember VBS.

3. Samson hair salon.
Although not physically painful, I think this would cause a good deal of mental stress. Let’s play Samson Hair Salon and give the kids dull scissors to cut each other’s hair with. How happy would you be to see your kid come home with a reverse mohawk that another kid gave him at VBS?

I doubt any of these games will ever take the place of red rover, but if you send your kid to VBS at my church, please know you will have to sign the “my kid might come home as bald as Britney Spears” waiver.

274. Not knowing how to do a proper standing ovation.

Church/ church culture June 4, 2008 • Comments

A few weeks ago, I helped write the opening number for the North Point Drive Conference in Atlanta. Steve Fee, who I might be doing some hilarious things with in the future, crushed the performance and it set a really cool vibe for the rest of the night. My only problem with the whole thing was that I had to suffer through a pretty serious “Half-SO.” What’s that?

A “Half-SO” is street slang for “Half Standing Ovation.” This is that awkward experience where half the crowd decides to stand during a song and the other half decides to remain seated. That’s what happened on opening night. A young girl in front of me immediately jumped to her feet and the guy next to her said, “Yeah no, not going to do that.” My wife couldn’t see, because of the standing girl, and I could because of the seated dude. So do I stand with my wife and show solidarity in the marriage? Do I remain seated and show that my wife and I express worship in different ways? Do I tap the guy in front of me on the shoulder and ask him why he is not standing?

So many questions.

People often accuse me of being negative on this site or mocking sweet baby Jesus. I don’t see it that way. I am not rapper Method Man, I did not come to bring the pain. I see this as me just holding up a mirror to church and Christianity. Sure, I am sarcastic, but more than that, I just try to be reflective. Today, I want to reflect a quick guide on how to know when it’s time to stand up during worship. I want to help eradicate the “Half-SO.”

The Get Up Guide. (When to get up and stand vs. get down and sit)

1. If the worship leader says, “Please rise,” it’s time to get up.

2. If the worship leader is playing the piano alone in a really sad way, it’s time to get down.

3. If at least 22% of the other people in the crowd are standing you have enough momentum to get everyone standing, so it’s time to get up.

4. If someone plays a pan flute or a tambourine that has ribbons on it, don’t encourage that behavior, it’s time to get down.

5. If there are 14 verses in the bulletin for today’s sermon, you’re about to be sitting for a while, it’s time get up.

6. If there is an old lady or squadron of old ladies behind you that won’t be able to see if you stand, it’s time to get down.

7. If the song sounds like it could be featured in a commercial for ESPN’s X Games or Mountain Dew, it’s time to get up.

8. If you can tell from the worship leader’s face that unless she gets a full ovation she is going to play “I could sing of your love forever” for the next 27 minutes, it’s time to get up.

9. If you have a friend visiting for the first time and they have promised to never return if you stand, dance or give them a side hug, it’s time to get down.

10. If when you stand you are going to be tempted to bust out some of the moves you learned in a youth group dance number to the song “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” it’s time to get down.

Hopefully this will help simplify a lot of stand up situations and help end the “Half-SO” problem currently decimating churches across the world.

Worship leaders, how do you feel about the Half-SO? Do you notice it? Do you want to arm wrestle the people that refuse to get up? Do you talk about it with other worship leaders when you are buying Fidel Castro hats at Buckle or scarves at H&M? (I’m just jealous because I can’t pull of either of those things and my goatee/soul patch is anemic at best)

273. Powerpointing for the Lord.

pastors June 4, 2008 • Comments

Remember that scene in the book of Matthew when Jesus is just starting his ministry and he turns to one of his disciples and says, “What version of PowerPoint are you guys using? What? You’ve never heard of PowerPoint? Oh that’s right, it won’t be invented for a while yet. Hmmm, I’ll just have to use parables to communicate then. OK, let’s do this thing.”

What’s that you say? That didn’t happen? Maybe not, but sometimes when I see the deep, all consuming passion some pastors have for the presentation software PowerPoint, I almost think God ordained its use in church.

I blame corporations, because it definitely is one of those things that migrated from businesses and has now found a new home in church services. But like anything else, when it comes to using PowerPoint in a sermon, there are some important things we all need to remember:

1. Don’t do the “letters slide in one at a time” trick.
I’m happy you figured out that application. You probably feel like I did when I discovered how to use the crop tool in Photoshop. I cropped every photo I owned and may or may not have built a small set for my GI Joe Storm Shadow action figure (it’s not a doll) and registered a now defunct site called word ninja for my portfolio. I went over board and so are you. Please, don’t slide in each letter one by one. Few things are as time consuming as watching O….L…..D…….T…..E……S….T…….A…..M…..E….N…….T moonwalk onto the slide.

2. Less is more.
One of my favorite rules when it comes to writing is that “inside every chubby idea is a thin idea trying to get out.” It’s true. I have to trim and cut a lot from my ideas and you might need to as well. I think you have too many slides. I don’t know how many you have right now, but I promise you, it’s too many. Cut a few.

3. The staple rule.
Print out your PowerPoint presentation. If you can staple it, you might have a short enough message. If your forearm breaks into an angry sweat because you have to be Hulk Hogan to staple through your super thick presentation, you might have a problem. I start to cry a little inside whenever I see someone at work hand out a presentation in a meeting that is so long it needed a binder clip to hold it together. The same goes for churches.

4. You don’t have to use every font.
It’s nice that PowerPoint has a lot of fonts, but please don’t see this as a challenge to use each and every one. You don’t need to incorporate wingdings or any other crazy fonts. In fact, I am pretty sure God hates the wingdings font.

5. Get a remote.
Sometimes, instead of having a remote to control the slide progression a presenter will have someone in the sound booth running the show or controlling the 1′s and 2′s as my DJ friends would say. The only danger with that is that rarely does that person have the rhythm right. (Not the sound booth’s fault. This is usually because the pastor will ad lib.) What usually happens is that the pastor has to say, “next slide please” roughly 54 times. Which is fun.

I’m starting to speak more and might be doing some college gigs this fall. (I used the word “gigs” there to sound young and hip.) Please know that my presentations will be staple thin and you won’t see a single PowerPoint slide. Promise.

GI Joe, Eagles, Smelly Hymnals and Coffee. (End of May Recap)

Misc June 4, 2008 • Comments

I wrote 76 posts in May. So just like last month, I decided it would be good to do a recap of what happened at SCL in the last few weeks.

Most popular question:
Where is chapter 3?
My laptop broke and had to go to rehab in Kentucky. That is not exactly how the tech dudes at Best Buy said it, but I do know my laptop is in Kentucky. When it returns to me, like in a scene from the movie, the Notebook, I will be able to tweak chapter 3 and send it out.

Best use of SCL advice:
oh yea! i did throw skittles at the congregation AND the response was fairly positive which was cool because our church is fairly conservative (that means no kicking old grandmas in the face and no leg-drops for the Lord). – from Chris

Favorite quote about church in Vegas:
I have a friend on staff at a Christian church in Vegas. He said they regularly get “chips” in the offering plate. And yes, they cash them in.

Reason I love people that read SCL in Mongolia:
Eagles? Hmm… I could arrange to have one exported from Mongolia for you Jon. For a fee of course… from Will

One of my favorite comments about naming your kids after Lord of the Rings
So today at our church picnic we met some guests who came whose son is “Atreyu”, named after a character in “The Neverending Story”!

Same post, equally as awesome from perkyguy
Ever see “The Matrix” with Keanu Reeves? “The Matix” is my son-in-law’s favorite movie. The Keanu Reeves character was named “Neo”.

“Neo” is also the name of my grandson.

Best comment about my Bible that is also a coffee thermos:
How about naming your Bible “The Scripture Sipper” or “The Caffiene Cannon”. There should also be a zippered pocket for biscotti. And a bendy straw that’s about 24 inches long so you can hold your Bible in your lap and read along while delivering frothy carmel half caff deliciousness straight to your pie hole. Ahhhhhhh. – from Stacy from Louisville

Most Biblically accurate picture of how the devil spends his time:
Whenever I hear something like “we’re putting the devil on notice,” I start to think about the devil. He’s at home, sitting in a chair by a never ending fire of sulfur and sorrow eating a deviled egg. He’s reading Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code or New Earth when someone knocks at his door.

Comment that inspired me to write about puppets:
If you do a post about the puppet ministry, please let me know and give me a couple of days notice — I’ll send you a picture. First, I have to dig around in our church’s attic and find a biblically dressed puppet that looks exactly like (as God is my witness) Jerry Seinfeld. – from Katdish.

Most helpful post and comments:
All the secret bathroom locations that people who work at churches posted.

Reader least likely to give me a side hug:
“Wake up from your self delusion and slumber while you can. You mock the Scripture HIMSELF!”

Post that made me sound like a fortune teller the day before Memorial Day Sunday:
The “everyone is on vacation, anything goes” service.

Most talked about post:
Drinking coffee in church.

Least talked about post:
Confusing “never” with “ever”

Porn post o’ the month.
Dear person that googled “porn” and got me.

Most unexpected media coverage of the site:
The Movie Reporter

Favorite two games:
How Metrosexual is your worship leader and Indiana Jones or the Bible?

Possible product extensions of Stuff Christians Like
The Promise Grill and other Promise related items.

Comment that was really touching but also really funny.
I must let you know, my mom has cancer right now, and this post has really ministered to me. I think it’s a bit more tasteful than some of the food we’re getting.

272. Paying people "the ministry rate."

Church/ church culture June 3, 2008 • Comments

As a freelance writer/consultant for churches, this is a topic that I am unfortunately very intimate with. But you might be lucky enough to have never experienced it. The ministry rate is basically when a church or religious organization asks you to donate your services for free or at a severe discount. Whether you’re a writer, a painter or an accountant, they ask you to see the job they want you to complete as a form of volunteering for the Lord. Every now and then, they’ll even lay the guilt on heavy and say something like, “We’re just praying you can bless our ministry with the talents God has given you.”

This is part of the reason nonsense like “Got God” and “Got Jesus” is still kicking around. We’re unwilling to pay for quality and then wonder why people in our community are not responding to the post card we sent to them that had a picture of a lawnmower on it and said “We sure would like to see you ‘mower.’” Get it? Instead of “more” it says, “mower.” It works on a number of levels.

But instead of complaining about the problem, which is admittedly fun, I thought I would offer a few suggestions. This is for any church that has ever said, “we just don’t have the money to do what we want to do.”

How to stretch your church design dollars:
1. Go smaller
Your first temptation, whether it’s in designing your bulletins, putting in a speaker system or building a sign out front is going to be for you to have the biggest and best available. Resist this temptation. Go small and simple. The world is flooded right now with information and if you do something small and simple, your church will actually stand out. Plan to have more than you need so that growth is possible, but don’t think your two options are “we have the best in the world” or “we have nothing at all.” Be realistic about your needs. It’s OK not to be a megachurch.

2. Go web light
Do you need a website? Yes. Does it need to have flash and downloadable sermons and a video archive and scent technology that shoots out old hymnal flavor? Maybe not. Do a five or six page website really well and then grow it as needed on an infrastructure that is flexible.

3. Go with a college student
I think we often ignore the vast amounts of talent college kids have. You don’t need an industry expert for every project. Talk with a college kid. They’ll be eager to expand their portfolio and bring a fresh voice to whatever they create for you.

4. Go smart on your logo
Logos are important, vital really, but they can also be a blackhole of time and money. Realize that your logo will help people understand your church, but despite what that designer wearing a beret and copywriter with a unibrow (that’s me) tell you, they are not a silver bullet. Jesus didn’t have a logo and He did pretty well.

This post is probably interesting to roughly 17 people, but I honestly think what one Christian author said is true, how we treat the church reflects how we feel about God. And bad work is a bad way to treat a good God.

271. Being afraid to use our gifts.

Serious Wednesdays June 3, 2008 • Comments

I saw Maya Angelou one time on TV. (If the question is, “were you watching the Martha Stewart show?” The answer is sadly enough, “yes.”) Angelou is perhaps America’s most treasured living poet and is known the world over for her ability to write and speak.

What was interesting about the short interview was that at one point in her life Angelou did not speak. In fact, from the ages of 7-13, she was a voluntary mute. Not a word escaped her lips, even when an elementary teacher tried to slap her face hard enough to make her speak. You see, Angelou was molested as a child. When the man passed away, she thought she had killed him with her voice. So from that point on she did not speak.

There are probably a million good ideas within the sadness of this tale but the one that struck me most was the lesson about gifts. Angelou’s strongest passion, the thing she would call her reason to be, is her words. She is a public speaker, an orator that has moved presidents and even nations at times. And yet for six years she did not share a single word.

Her gift was stolen. Perhaps only temporarily, but it was stolen nonetheless. Maybe you’ve got a gift too that has been stolen. I think that happens more than we like to admit. Maybe there’s some hurt associated with that gift. You’re a musician that could never please your father so you gave up the piano. An artist whose work caused pain somehow so you gave up the paint brushes. I don’t know how it happened to you, but because I write this blog, I’ll tell you how it happened to me.

I used to use my words to interact with girls online. I used to post funny things, or insightful things in hopes that my approval addiction would get fed in some way. I even started sending out long, bibly emails to friends from church in hopes that they would tell me how holy I was. I misappropriated my greatest gift in a selfish desire to feed my massive ego and numb my wounds.

After a while, I realized what I was doing and decided to never do that again. The easiest way was to simply stop writing. The way I could control it in my own power was to quit writing. I might have scribbled in a journal, but the swirling and twisting storm of words that seethed inside remained silent. My gift was stolen. There were too many thorn bushes planted by my one talent. I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

I eventually couldn’t contain it any longer. The words inside me felt like soldiers dying inside a submarine that was running out of air. I asked God if I could write again. I asked him if he was cool with me writing, given my less than proud past. The answer was not what I expected. It was actually pretty simple. I felt like he said, “Do you know what I do when you write? I sing.”

That’s the truth. I think we know that when we use our gift to hurt ourselves or others we understand that satan is winning. (I just gave him the middle finger of grammar by lower casing the s!) But I think satan wins too when we refuse to use our gift at all. He loves to attack our gifts that matter most, the most. And when we lock them tightly in a chest under our bed, he wins.

So here’s my blog. And there’s your gift, waiting to be used. Don’t let it be stolen. You might have damaged it and bruised it in the past. Someone close to you may have tried to snuff it out.

But it’s there. Tired of being silent, desperate to sing.

Twitter and the End of May Recap.

Misc June 3, 2008 • Comments

A few folks have asked about Twitter. I am on there and my name is “ProdigalJohn.” If you’d like to connect, please do. I’m on facebook under the email address theacuffs@yahoo.com

I will also be posting the end of May recap tonight. It will include such things as a new category called “reader least likely to give me a side hug” and new items for the “bag o’ awesome” that the bulletin bored winner will be getting.